Crank and Cruise Race

Wow. A great race was had by all. T-bone and I duked it out for the Single Speed Championship, just like old day's:)


this picture stolen from here


Teri, Bianchi, and I arrived at Crowder around 10am, went and registered then unloaded. Once everything was good with the bike I saw 3p0 and Cornbread chillen by the car. Knowing that 3p0 had brought me some of

this I headed straight for him to get an early start on the carb loading. It's a single speed thang:) Threw a brew down then went to mingle with some other mates I had not seen in awhile. 11:30 better suit up and get to spinning the legs.

Line'm up mates, I think that there were around 10 of us in the SS cat., on the line I was sizing uhm up to see who would be my main comp. T-bone always a competetor and a couple guys I hadn't seen before stuck out, but I thought to myself I was already a little bit ahead of the game at this point. Dennis Grelk of Team 14 Productions gave me a call on Sat. night to let me in on the course layings. Basically he said run a big gear there are only 3 hills, and its fast as hell. I ran a 34x16, while most everyone else seemed to be running the standard 2x1. In the end it proved to be a little too steep for the sprint finish that T-Bone (running a 32x18, 29r) would take in one of the best race finishes we've ever had:) Great Job again biatch:)!! Ok back to the start. We had about .25 miles of pavement for the start, then onto a super fast gravel road that went downhill, a right hand sweeper that took us straight down on some rutted out rocky gravel shit and at the bottom of that a hair pin left turn to the single track with the fist short climb. Looked like there was around 60 folks in our mass start group with us SS'rs in the middle of all the gearies.... great.

GO.... I instantly went to the grass and shot straight to the front with around 6 guys ahead of me, on the straight DH to the sweeping left single track I made my move as everyone was breaking way to early for my liking. Shooting past all those mates I make it to the turn first with 10 bike links and start the climb. Once to the top it was a super fast DH to the bottoms ground which was flowy with some creek crossings, log crossings and roots scattered through the trial. On the second log crossing my water bottle flew out.....shit.....I kept on rolling. Next up was the second climb, my gear choise wasn't good for this one as I made it 3/4 up and bailed to run the rocky part to the top. This would happen every lap on this climb. Now panting like a track dog in the finial race, no drink for you, I enter the flowy good stuff again with some short climbs till we hit the field. After the field came the rock garden section, a good place to flat and pick up some spots on the downhills. Thankfully I never came upon any slow riders here. Once through this area you crossed the road to the finial piece of single track to the last climb. A fast piece with one short climb then the 1/4 mile climb to the start/finish. This is where T-Bone caught me on the finish of the first lap, we would change 1 and 2 positions a couple more times before ending our great race.

On lap 3 (finial lap) T-Bone once agian caught me on the 2nd climb.....shit.... that little focker won't give in. When I bailed to run the climb my quads damn near popped into that stage of cramps that you want to cry for your mommy. Suck it up I think to myself as I'm yelling at T-Bone to clean the climb as he passes me. At this point I tell him the race is his I won't contest....... oh my ass......suck it up I say again and I'm back on the bike realing him in. We dance through the flowy goodness piece only to come upon our or maybe I should say my only grawly point of the race. T-Bone and I are on this she'las ass I'm ringing my bell, Troy is asking politely to pass on the left, this goes on for a minute. Troy tries the left only to get shut down by a tree, now we're rubbing tires and the chick says "whats wrong with the right side" in this pissy voice. My point exactly you little $#!#@!#@, if its so good why the fuck aren't you getting your ass over there to let us pass on the left. OOOOOMMMMMMM,OOOOOOMMMMMM......its ok, just pass her on the right, so we bolt by her with the thoughts of "chicken wing" crossing my mind:) Once to the field I jump infront and lead the rest of the way to the finial climb. Right at the top Troy punches it and I have nothing for him, he takes the win with about 40yrds on me.
I think I'm going to puke!!!:)) Thats all folks, hope you enjoy, next up is Boone in two weeks. I'll have more pics up later on as my home computer in on the blink.


Peace